


Reasons to Kill an Alpha

by IndraraSkye



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter Hale, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Non-Graphic Violence, Peter's a good alpha, Steter Week, Steter Week 2019, establishing relationship too, lots of memories in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 05:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20040328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndraraSkye/pseuds/IndraraSkye
Summary: When Peter was young and stupid, he'd KNOWN that the only reason to kill an alpha was power. As time goes on, he's quickly learning that power may not be the best reason.





	Reasons to Kill an Alpha

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 2 of Steter Week! Alpha!Peter and/or BAMFS in love. These two, especially when paired together, are BAMFS in their own right, so as long as there is love there, that's just automatically covered, so I sort of focused on Peter's alpha journey right into future land. As always, work is un-beta'd. I'm still fairly confident that it is still enjoyable, however, so have at it! :D

The first time he’d ever killed an alpha had been an unfortunate incident. He wasn’t really sorry he’d done it, but when everything was said and done, he was regretful it had to happen the way it did. He wasn’t even really angry that his nephew had killed him when they’d reached the end of that sad little spectacle. He had been a terrible alpha. In his defense, he was more than a little bit insane and not even fully human at the time it had happened, but still, the truth is the truth. He’d been terrible at it. He’d bitten the wrong boy. He hadn’t gone straight to recruiting his nephew. He didn’t have the mental function to bite anyone else, let alone anyone useful. He’d focused entirely on his vendetta. 

He didn’t regret that last point. The vendetta had been what had kept him going at the time. It was the one thing that had to happen above all else. Unfortunately, it consumed him so much that he didn’t have the time or energy to pour into becoming a useful alpha. Derek’s kill had been righteous, and it was correct that he should take the mantle of alpha from him. It was disappointing that Derek went on to be a terrible alpha in his own right, but the truth is the truth. The Hale men were not cut out to be Hale alphas.

The one bright spot of his brief tenure as alpha was meeting a terribly bright, terribly clever young boy who could easily keep pace with him and liked education almost as much. He was a big enough man to admit that biting Scott McCall had been a horrendous faux pas; that he’d bitten the wrong friend in that scenario. Stiles Stilinski would have been an incredible wolf. He’d still be an incredible wolf, to this day, and maybe if he was one, the man wouldn’t currently be drooling all over the real leather covering the passenger seat of Peter’s vintage Silver Dawn as they traveled up highway one and toward home.

~~~

The second time he’d killed an alpha had been a happy accident. He hadn’t had any designs or machinations about being an alpha again, his first tenure going completely astray. He was becoming tired of being an omega, though, the strain of loneliness fraying at his edges. He wasn’t wanted in Beacon Hills, and True Alpha Scott McCall was almost as bad an alpha as Peter and Derek had been, so heading to his former home was out of the question, even if it would be amazing to officially pack up with the likes of Stiles. His daughter had been integrated into that pack, though, so that was enough for him, and Stiles still occasionally reached out via text or email when he thought nobody was looking to ask about a research project or a trouble the pack was facing. (Peter had always been amazed at how often nobody looked at Stiles.) 

Peter had headed into Reno because he’d heard a pack there was in the market for an enforcer, and he’d done a lot of enforcing in his day. He wasn’t opposed to having an alpha; he was just opposed to having McCall as his alpha. He’d felt the presence of another wolf immediately after entering a bar outside of Reno, but he figured that he was there for an official meeting with a pack, so he ignored it in favor of the latest craft brew that Stiles had raved about during their last text “study session.” (Everyone always gave Stiles a hard time about his tangents and his ADHD, but once Peter tied all the tangents in one conversation together, he ended up marveling at the different view they offered to whatever subject was at hand.)

The wolf in the building joined him at the bar. Nothing remotely screamed authority at him, so he ignored the company and waited for the local pack representatives to arrive—he’d been assured there would be two of them. The wolf next to him shoved him lightly, hard enough for him to rock a bit on his stool. He glared over at the wolf and took a draw on his beer bottle. 

The wolf was nothing special to look at. He was lean, but the wife beater/leather vest ensemble he was sporting showed muscle on his frame. He was tan enough that Peter wondered if he was possibly Latino, and the poor man wore his dark hair in a mullet. A MULLET. It was just unfortunate. He sat hunched in on himself and scowled sullenly at Peter. He didn’t look like anyone important. He didn’t carry himself like anyone important. Peter could take him if he was looking for trouble. He turned back to stare at the bottles lining shelves behind the bar, and the wolf next to him knocked him out of his seat. He had no idea what this guy’s problem was, but he was happy to solve it. He stood up, dusted his shirt off, and decked the guy across the jaw. He put enough motion into his swing that the guy would sway with the hit, and he swayed enough to fall off his own stool. Peter sat back down and drank again from his bottle. The beer was fairly lousy, but he’d told Stiles he would try it and report back, so he was determined to finish it.

The guy slunk out of the bar, and Peter was fairly certain that was that. Three hours, a couple of local craft brews, and no other wolves later, Peter sighed and exited the bar. He’d hoped that wolf wasn’t a test of some sort, but the pack had assured him two representatives would meet him, and tradition dictated a face to face meeting before any sort of testing could take place. This pack was small, but fairly well established. Their alpha was on the newer side of things, but all research indicated someone who knew what they were doing. He still had a couple of other interesting prospects out there, but they were in colder climes. He enjoyed heat.

He was jumped outside the bar. He could smell the same wolf from before as he’d hit the fresh night air, but hadn’t reacted quickly enough to the sensory information. The wolf was on him, and the wolf was pissed. Claws came out, fangs dropped, and he’d taken the guy, just like he knew he could. It wasn’t until the last moment, the fatal slash that the wolf’s eyes flashed. They were alpha red. Peter dug deeper and pulled harder, then savored the rush of the alpha power again flowing through his veins and igniting every cell in his body. This power surged ice cold, like shards of metal flecking against his muscles and tendons. He took half a second to mourn the loss of the warm, hazy Hale power, then cricked his neck and pushed the power into its place. It ran wilder than his family’s, but Peter was in control of his every faculty. He could handle assimilating a little “wild.”

He’d called the pack representative he’d been in contact with to ask if they’d just lost an alpha—they had, which made this pack much sloppier than his research had suggested—then set up a pack meeting for the following morning and hung up. The new pack bonds snapped into place as he called Stiles to announce this new development. He knew the kid had a biology exam the next morning, but he also knew Stiles had spent the last three nights in the university library studying for that exam. The boy wouldn’t hold it against him if he wanted to call and gloat about this happy accident. 

Sure enough, Stiles actually congratulated him. Then he told Peter not to fuck things up this time and that he’d talk to Scott about pack alliances. Peter told him not to bother—the new bonds were tenuous, and many of them vibrated angrily. He doubted there’d be much of a pack the next day. Stiles still told him they should ally, because it’d be nice to be able to work together officially. Peter suggested the boy just join him and they could work together as much as he’d like. Stiles laughed and called him cute, which Peter noted wasn’t a “no.”

The next day, he walked out of that meeting with three new betas, no second, no enforcer, no emissary, and the dissolution of a fairly established pack. He was still an alpha, though, and a pack of four was better than nothing.

He looked over at the mole-dotted skin practically glowing against the seat next to him and smiled to himself about how much things had changed since those days. He picked up speed and enjoyed the wind rushing through his hair.

~~~

The third time he’d killed an alpha, the female had been moving to smash an arm through Stiles Stilinski’s chest. That wouldn’t do because a) that was HIS move and b) that was HIS boy. Maybe not in any official capacity, but he’d decided at that point that Stiles was going to be his one day, which made the boy his. Scott was clearly not moving to stop the alpha, even though Stiles was HIS packmate, so Peter lunged toward her with claws and snarls and knocked into her hard enough that she crashed to her side on the ground. He glanced over at his boy to ensure the kid was alright, and Stiles smirked and nodded at him before turning around and demonstrating his speed boxing training on a random beta’s face. Peter smiled at the efficiency of the moves, a warmth filling his chest and his whole body feeling lighter, before he whirled back around, picked the alpha up by her long blonde hair, and snapped her neck. Her alpha power had been tamer than his, her control less tight. She had given McCall quite a few problems, but she wasn’t much of a match for Peter and his three other betas.

Her power flowed through him, warm like candle wax just dripped on skin. It felt thick like melted candle wax, too, clogging his blood cells and shushing through his brain. Through his gums, his fangs lengthened slightly. Everything in his vision brightened, edges sharpening and colors more vivid even through his alpha vision. He closed his eyes and rolled his head in a slow circle, willing the sluggish alpha power to merge down and into his own. It was his now; it would bend to his will. The new power thudded and shuddered, attempting to fight his control and maintain dominance. He breathed in deeply through his nose and held the breath, visually forcing the power into the pathways and conduits he ran his own power through. He watched it shrink and felt it condense until it was running alongside his, then visually twisted his own power around it until they were merged and flowing as one. His body settled. His mind calmed. His enhanced vision remained. He pushed some of his new power out through the pack bonds and into his established betas. He’d studied some since Beacon Hills. He knew now that an alpha’s strength was only maintained by maintaining the strength of their betas. The betas howled and laughed. A hand rested on one of his arms. He’d been focused on the pack bonds within him and hadn’t noticed Stiles approach him. It was sloppy, and with this boy, it could prove fatal. Stiles would make an excellent official enforcer, but pack humans couldn’t hold that position given the type of dirty work it entailed.

He smiled at Stiles, who’d smiled back and asked how that much more power felt. He shrugged and said it felt good, because that was what the boy seemed to be looking for. The truth was that once alpha power rushed through his veins again, he found that he didn’t need any more. It was enough for him to have the control and to have established betas to keep him strong and sane. If he was being honest, this additional power just felt unnecessary. He found himself thinking of Deucalian then. They’d been friends once, two enforcers scheming about how much more they could do if they were alphas, how much differently they’d run their packs. Deucalian had become an alpha far before him, but that apparently wasn’t enough. The man who had once been his friend and confidant had managed to drive himself insane on power. He wondered how many alphas Duke had killed before he’d lost his mind. He hoped the answer was far more than two.

He offered Stiles the bite again, right there in that grimy warehouse with corpses and injured and pack scattered around them. He could hear Scott snarl from somewhere else, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Stiles had smiled, looked almost wistful, and then told Peter that he was still the craziest fucker around before clapping him on the shoulder and walking back toward Scott. Stiles had spoken with truth and conviction, but the hesitation this time was even stronger than when Peter had first offered him the bite. Peter and the McCall Pack did strengthen alliances, and Peter got to catch up with his daughter a bit, so he put this particular battle, this particular alpha kill, in the “win” column again and snuck into Stiles’s room later that night with a six-pack of IPAs and a bestiary he’d liberated from some hunters in Michigan to get the young man’s opinion on harpies and hair pins.

He’d come out of the meeting he’d set with the dead alpha’s pack the next morning with a decent potential second, an enforcer, and four new betas total. All in all, it wasn’t a horrible outcome. He knew something was still missing, though.

The man next to him, still very human, snorted in his sleep. He was older, and he’d changed over the years, but he’d never accepted Peter’s offer. Peter reached out and tucked an errant strand of hair back behind Stiles’s ear. Stiles sleep-drooled through the touch.

~~~

The fourth time he’d killed an alpha had been entirely the fault of one Mieczyslaw Elias “Stiles” Stilinski. The man had decided to head to San Francisco for graduate school, discover the joys of peyote, and activate completely dormant magic within himself. He was still part of the McCall Pack, but he spent more time with Peter than he did in Beacon Hills in the couple years leading up to the “San Francisco Fiasco,” as Peter had dubbed it. Peter had reached out to Scott and implied that it might be a good idea to send someone to keep an eye on Stiles, but Scott told him that Stiles could handle himself and that Scott couldn’t spare anyone at that moment.

Stiles was spending an inordinate amount of time “tripping balls”—Stiles’s words, not Peter’s—and Peter highly doubted that Stiles could handle much of anything at that point in his life. He left his second in charge of matters in the territory in northern California that they’d carved out and headed to Stiles himself. The man was a danger to himself and others while sober and free of magic. He was not risking the physical safety of a future pack member so the man could experiment with mind-altering drugs by himself.

Stiles’s roommate had answered the door when Peter knocked, still scowling at the terrible state of security in the graduate-level dorms. Stiles was curled into himself on the area rug covering the cheap floor tile, a thick layer of smoke smelling of dragon’s blood and peyote ringing his head. He looked to be deep in thought. Peter wondered if he was still on this plane of existence. If anyone would take a drug-induced trip to an astral plane, it would be Stiles. He’d walked Stiles through that trip, packed the belongings Stiles had in that atrocious little dorm room, and moved Stiles off campus while he was recovering from his last trip. He even jumped onto some local forums and found a teacher so that Stiles wouldn’t accidentally blow himself up with his now-active magic.

They’d spent six months in a shared off-campus apartment in relative peace, and Peter had been certain that he’d gotten closer and closer to recruiting Stiles to his pack. The man had magic, and he knew some of the customs and traditions of wolf packs. Even if he swore up and down that he’d never accept the bite, he’d be a magnificent addition to Peter’s slowly growing pack. The last two betas Peter had recruited, bringing his pack up to an even ten members, were even sent his way by the man he was currently wooing for his pack. For six months, Peter had kept Stiles safe while he experimented, made sure he got to classes and lessons, and managed to run his territory from afar and keep his head down. He enjoyed six months of werewolf non-interference.

Then Stiles decided he should stop tripping, and Peter’s relative peace and quiet dissolved.

One month of Stiles completely sober found them yelling at each other about the finer points of physics and werewolf etiquette over the snaps and snarls of a local San Francisco pack that Stiles had thought it would be a good idea to clue in about their existence. It had been a hard fight, the two of them engaging in guerrilla tactics when the actual fighting started because there were two of them and twelve of the other pack. Stiles had used his magic to send a general distress call to other local werewolves, and it turned out there was a local pack that hated the pack they were fighting. 

They ended up winning in the end. Peter was fairly surprised they came out of the fight intact, let alone victorious, but the pack who’d come to their rescue were scrappy and full of verve, and Stiles was quick with the energy throwing.

Peter had been wrestling with the SanFran alpha, claws out and fangs spitting and eyes flaring. The man was tenacious and seemed determined to take Peter down. He snarled and threw his weight to one side, twisting them. A flash of red light zinged into the back of the alpha’s head, and Peter found himself suddenly holding up the dead weight of an unconscious alpha. 

Stiles had hissed at him angrily, asking him if he’d expected the alpha gift wrapped and tied with a bow or something. Peter hoped the snark and confusion showed on his face as he stared back. It took Stiles yelling to “kill the fucking ass, Jesus Christ, Peter, what the actual shit is wrong with you” for him to realize that Stiles had not killed the alpha in order to let Peter do it. Stiles had presented him with a gift of more power. Peter was pretty sure he knew exactly how the Grinch had felt on Christmas Day. Nobody had ever actually hand-delivered him power before. Most people called him a sociopath and a serial killer because he’d wanted it in the first place. 

Peter had killed the alpha. He’d come out of THAT encounter with faster reflexes, four new betas, five new pack members, and an emissary—Stiles. He’d come out of that encounter with Stiles. Scott had been less than pleased, and Peter couldn’t remember ever grinning as broadly as he did during THAT conversation.

Now, sitting in his Rolls with the man who’d given him such a gift snuffling softly into his flannel shirt, he was only surprised that Stiles hadn’t done it before then. It turned out that Stiles was just as security conscious as Peter was, and his ethical boundaries might be more flexible than even Peter’s. He still maintains that Stiles would have been one of the best enforcers in the history of wolf packs if he’d accepted the bite any of the times Peter had offered it.

~~~

The fifth time he’d had the opportunity to kill an alpha, he didn’t. He could have; the rush from THAT kill would have been astronomical. He could have been unstoppable with that particular kill under his belt. He didn’t take it, though, even if Scott McCall had REALLY had it coming, because he’d discovered the meaning of the word “love.” It turns out that it meant something entirely different than he’d believed it to mean. The way people around him always talked, “love” was hot and raging and unstoppable and blind and set on heavy and fast. 

Growing up, “love” was used only as a token word both toward him and by him. He was raised from a very young age to be the left hand, to be an enforcer—to get his hands dirty whenever his alpha needed him to. Enforcers were often discouraged from attachments, whether familial, friendly, or romantic, because those attachments could interfere with their jobs. His mother held him at arms’ length. His father smacked him around to “toughen him up.” His sister sneered and openly chided him every chance she could get. He performed his job admirably for her, but he’d only ever thought about love in terms that other people set it in. Feelings got in his way, so he let other people deal with them.

It took years, but he discovered that “love” was nothing like his niece’s nighttime stories. It was nothing like his nephew’s fleeting romances. It was nothing like his sister described or his brothers tried to disarm him with. “Love” was patience. “Love” was bullheadedness. “Love” was safety and security first. “Love” was sarcasm first thing in the morning and coffee made to his specifications without him having to ask for it. “Love” was seeing a book on energy work or a ridiculous werewolf paranormal romance and buying them immediately because he knew how much the other person would appreciate that. It was snuggling on the couch with someone willing to indulge his Hallmark Christmas movie obsession and cuddling in bed with someone when all he wanted to do was shower and sleep. “Love” was slow, and it certainly saw everything.

Love was not killing Scott McCall after the alpha had attacked one of Peter’s betas in one of his asinine tantrum-rages because Scott McCall was Stiles’s best friend, so he didn’t kill an alpha and then he wondered briefly if there was any way to put a bow on that fact and call it a wedding present. His mate and soon-to-be husband already had a PhD, every gaming system known to man, a Harley, and a full passport. Peter had been having trouble trying to come up with a good wedding gift idea; Stiles wasn’t exactly the “tea set and bone China” type of groom. 

He’d just put on his tux and settled into the idea of letting Stiles be the big spoon for a while as a wedding gift when the door to the room he was getting ready in flew off its hinges. A cold shiver passed from his head to his toe. If something supernatural was about to ruin his wedding, he was going to kill multiple people. Stiles was not going to talk him out of that. It turned out that it was just his own enforcer and Scott McCall fighting to something entirely past “first blood.” He jumped back as they tussled past him and grabbed at Cherkiya’s collar, stopping the female from doing further harm to his future-husband’s best friend. Scott sprang at HIM next, nearly ruffling his suit.

Stiles had squawked into the room at pretty much that exact time, literally magically freezing Scott in his tracks and unleashing a string of garbled words that sounded like an apology to his enforcer. Peter wasn’t entirely sure, and it didn’t really matter that much to him. Scott had attacked one of his higher level betas. Peter would have been well within his rights to kill him for it. Stiles was one hell of an emissary; he knew that Stiles was aware of this. 

Instead of killing Scott or demanding retribution, however, he simply pointed at Scott presentation-style and informed Stiles that he WASN’T going to kill Scott, which meant that Peter still got to be big spoon at night. A series of complicated emotions crossed Stiles’s face at this pronouncement, and then he asked Peter how long he would play little spoon if Stiles let him kill Scott. He knew Stiles was kidding, so he didn’t inform his mate that he would play little spoon for the rest of their lives if he was allowed to kill the “True Alpha.”

Stiles communicated at Scott with a series of strange hand motions before unfreezing him, and then they all went out to the area set up for the ceremony and Peter promised to do all the things that he’d promised before, when Stiles had accepted both his proposal and the mating mark. It was official, and Stiles was his in a way he’d never really entertained in the early years of their acquaintance.

~~~

It had been a long road, but Peter was finally home. 

He hadn’t ended up out of his mind with grief. He hadn’t ended up insane like Duke. He hadn’t ended up a lonely omega, barely holding on to his fraying sanity. He hadn’t ended up an unstable mess, alone in life and wondering why nobody just ended things for him way back when.

Instead, he parked his Silver Dawn in the garage of his pack house and cupped a hand around the bottom of his husband’s cheek to gently wake him up.

“Baby, we’re home. If you don’t want me bridal carrying you inside, it’s time to wake up now.”

Stiles groaned and nuzzled his cheek against Peter’s hand. It was soft and trusting and something Peter never thought he’d ever experience.

Stiles yawned, his eyes still closed. “Fuck it. Carry me to bed, you beast. Just snuggle me close and let me sleep in the process.”

He stifled a little giggle before it had time to escape his mouth and got out of the car. A few houses back, he could hear playful banter and the overly loud chuckles of his niece and nephew. The sound widened the smile on his face. His family was home, too.

He walked around and gently lifted Stiles out of his side of the car, holding his husband close to him as he gentled the passenger door closed. He’d managed to make it all the way to the steps leading to the second story of their house before two small black streaks whizzed by him and almost tripped him. He balanced himself back out, gentled his mate further against him, scowled, and cursed out loud at the cats that Stiles had thought it absolutely hilarious to bring home a couple years back. 

Against his chest, Stiles rumbled out a little laugh. “They know you can’t die, Zombiewolf. They just like to test it from time to time.”

Peter thought about dropping Stiles right then, letting him hit the stairs, but he knew that his own enforcer would turn on him if he did that. Also, Stiles would probably be mad, and Stiles was now a very scary person if you didn’t know he was on your side.

Instead he told his husband that he should shut up and that Peter loved him. He did, however, dump Stiles on their bed fairly unceremoniously.

He was home. His husband and mate was snuggling into…Peter’s side of the bed, that little shit, and snuffling quietly. His pack, his family were settling in for the night in smaller homes on their land. Maybe he could do this alpha thing, after all. He sent up a small smile to his sister and then went to bed. He had paperwork to catch up on tomorrow.


End file.
